Servers, such as email servers, can be configured to limit spam (e.g., such as email spam) and/or unwanted traffic. Some known solutions throttle (e.g., reduce and/or limit) the total amount of messages a user can send within a pre-determined time period (e.g., a day, an hour, and/or the like). Such known solutions can also use information about the user, such as how many emails the user usually sends, the user's reputation (e.g., whether or not the user tends to send spam emails frequently), and/or other such information. Such methods, however, can cause new users who naturally send a large volumes of emails (and/or who may need to send a large volume of email when they sign up for the service) to be incorrectly throttled under suspicion of sending spam email. Additionally, such methods can cause servers to not throttle users with good reputations, on account of their reputations, even when their accounts have been compromised.
Accordingly, a need exists for methods and apparatus that can determine when to throttle emails from a user's account, without relying only on a user's reputation or average volume of emails.